The national media will abandon the United Center now — for a couple of months, at least. The LeBron James tweets and the inane nationally televised debates will disappear. The relentless and repetitive locker room questions about how “fun” it is to just keep winning will mercifully end.

The circus is closed.

Getting thoroughly trounced 6-2 by a thoroughly mediocre Colorado Avalanche team to end an NHL-record season-opening 24-game point streak — and an 11-game win streak — will have that effect, no matter how staggeringly brilliant the seven weeks that preceded it were. And maybe that’s not the worst thing that could have happened to the Blackhawks — to get away from the hype, the chatter and the spotlight for a bit.

Maybe now it’ll be easier to look ahead and not back. After all, Friday’s loss marked the first game of the second half of the season. Maybe the silly season — magical and memorable and remarkable as it was — is done.

The streak is over. The stretch run begins.

“Maybe the last handful of games, I think the talk about it kind of got out of control,” Hawks captain Jonathan Toews said, before adding that the team was never distracted by it. “If anything, maybe it does take a little pressure off of us, and we can sit back and look at the good things we’ve done, but also remind us of the things we’ve done that made us successful as a team, and try to bring that back.”